Aviva opening ‘at least one’ office location before next Biba conference

In an interview with Insurance Age, UK and Ireland general insurance CEO Jason Storah said there was “more to come” from Aviva after opening two new offices back in May, in Chelmsford and Southampton, as well as expanding its presence in Glasgow.

Storah said: “Dave [Martin] and the team are doing a really good job on that and they’ve got a very clear plan. And we’ve already seen the benefits from the expansion in Glasgow and opening the new offices. We think there’s more to go at.”

Now Martin, managing director of UKGI distribution and SME at the insurer, has revealed that expansion has been targeted across the country.

“We have focused on expansion in the second half of the year,” he said.

Birmingham

He has revealed operations in Newcastle and Belfast have also been expanded, with Birmingham next on the hit list.

I need to let those processes flow through, but my expectation would be that we see at least one open before Biba next year

David Martin, Aviva

“When you look at the success we have already seen, with expansion in Glasgow, expansion in Newcastle, we opened some expanded positions in Belfast in September. We are looking at deploying similar expansions in Birmingham.”

According to Martin, pictured, the Birmingham expansion is an opportunity to bring more visibility to an already successful area of operation.

“We are looking at ways in which we can get more staff there and together more often and expand some of the seats.

“Our people want to visible; they want to be in the market, and we have to ensure we give them as much opportunity of that as we can.”

New offices

When asked about any new locations the insurer may open in the near future, Martin said he was confident on at least one.

“We do have two or three particular locations we can see the opportunity to open in.

“I need to let those processes flow through, but my expectation would be that we see at least one open before Biba next year.

“I would expect more, but that obviously depends on whether we can find appropriate premises and get the appropriate lease sorted.”

Martin did not want to name the locations Aviva is looking at because he said the insurer is exploring which is the most viable option to begin with, so did not want to pre-empt which location would be first.

Visible and accessible

The new office openings have all come from Aviva’s desire to be more visible and accessible to brokers, but also to have a more diverse talent pool in order to reflect the customer.

“With Southampton and Chelmsford, there are significant numbers of new applicants we’ve had as a result of being local in those areas.

“We’ve got good gender diversity across all of that, good skill set, good personality mixes, and good culture mixes across there, which I hope therefore demonstrates that we will reflect our customers.”

Deals

Insurance Age also revealed last week how Aviva had entered into a capacity deal with Howden for the broker’s Bespoke Farm and Estate Scheme.

Martin said more deals of that nature are in the pipeline.

“We have been building that team out under Rebecca Gambrell and Donna Smith. We signed that deal because we believe more access to Aviva capital is good for customers and good for brokers.

“We have signed the deal with Howden, and there are a number of others that we continue to negotiate.”

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